Scathing MPUSD audit finds widespread flaws

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Monterey High School principal Marcie Plummer speaks about her personal journey to become an educator as Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Principals meet during their once a month leadership council at the MPUSD district office in Monterey on Thursday January 15, 2015. Each session a different member speaks about the their background. (David Royal - Monterey Herald)

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dr. Rhoda Mhiripi-Reed leads the once-a-month Leadership Council meeting for principals at the MPUSD district office in Monterey on Thursday January 15, 2015. (David Royal - Monterey Herald)

MONTEREY >> A long-awaited audit into the internal workings of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District was finally unveiled this week. While scathing, long-time district observers were hardly surprised by its contents.

Developed by Iowa-based Curriculum Management Systems, Inc., the 250-page report consistently described many of the systems in place at MPUSD as ‘inadequate.’ The district flunked in several areas, including having no strategic plan, no job descriptions for key positions and high employee turnover, which strips the district of institutional knowledge.

Rosanne Stripling, a member of the auditing team, summarized the report at Tuesday’s board meeting and explained in broad strokes its contents.

“It’s a deficit audit,” Stripling told the board. “These are not glowing comments about the district. It takes a very courageous board to hire people to tell them what you’re doing wrong.”

Auditors analyzed the workings of the district through the lens of five standards: whether the district has control of its resources, has clear objectives for the students through detailed curricula, consistency and equity in developing programs for all students, effective ways to evaluate systems already in place, and finally whether the district has improved “productivity,” meaning that the resources are ultimately resulting into higher student achievement.

The report also found no curriculum for many of the courses taught, which means there’s no way of knowing if the instruction in fourth-grade math is aligned with what students should know by fifth grade.

In total there were 17 findings, most of which described the district’s processes as “inadequate.”

Auditors emphasized three areas for fault, including that while the district offers training for teachers and administrators, the professional development is not targeted to respond to existing needs.

Another major criticism addressed resources allocated for English learners. Almost 30 percent of the district’s students are English learners, and even though there’s a program in place, it lacks quality and is not implemented consistently across the district. The audit found that 331 students in high school have been considered English language learners for 10 years, when ideally the students should leave the program in five or six years.

English language learners are achieving lower than their peers whose first language is English, they’re less likely to graduate, and have a higher representation in special education than other groups.

But one of the of the most scathing criticisms was reserved for the district’s budgeting process, noting that the budget for 2013-14 contains “numerous statements that reflect insufficient command of financial and accounting management procedures.”

It also faulted the district’s history of deficit spending, noting it demonstrates “confusion and lack of control by staff over the financial operations and condition of the district.”

The budget line-items presented to the trustees “are misrepresented as authentic entities, but essentially are informal totals aggregated by system personnel,” auditors wrote, adding that this manner of compiling the budget is not conducive to good decision-making.

Trustees described some of the results as disturbing, although they did not seem surprised, either. They voted in April to spend $52,000 to hire the consulting team.

The auditors also detailed six recommendations on how to proceed and what systems to establish moving forward. Some of the changes could take up to seven years to implement, Stripling said.

Allyson Schweifler, president of the Monterey Bay Teachers Association, told trustees the contents of the audit confirmed what many had pointed out for years.

“Let’s change it,” she said. “I like the idea of taking the time (to implement those changes). Too many times we do things quickly (and) they’ve been ineffective. It’s good to get the whole picture of where we need to go.”

During his first 100 days in office, Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh identified many of the district’s challenges pointed at by the audit, and is taking steps to correct them.

“We’ve already revamped our professional development offerings to align them with instructional shifts in the Common Core,” he said. “Rather than just saying to the teachers ‘What do you need?’ we’re really looking at what type of instruction is needed for students to do well in the new Common Core Standards, and aligning professional development to that.”

Diffenbaugh’s goal is to use the audit to shape drafting of the Local Control Accountability Plan, one of the requirements under the Local Control Funding Formula, the new way in which California is distributing money to schools.